npower, meterplus, bailiff letter - not for us!

jamtart6

hi all, bought a reposessed house a while back, with one thing and another couldnt get a new account opened for our gas and elec with npower as previous owners owed a lot of money to npower, ended up just manging to sort it all out, 8 weeks after we bought house (not living there yet).

Basically today we got a letter "to the occupier" from meterplus who i think are a company owned by npower who said they are sending bailiffs round :eek: with a locksmith:eek: and if necessary a policeman :eek::eek::eek::eek::eek: to gain entry to our property to read the meter and sort out collection of the money owed by previous tenants. :eek:

The letter said ring npower. I rang npower, who said the info that is with meterplus, must have overlapped the time when we set up a new account, and no further action will be taken as it is obviously not our debt.

But I'm really scared! Can I believe Mr Npower? (I've had several conflicting pieces of info previously from them)

leonifay

we had similar problems in our rented house, keep identity cards neer the frount door (not obvious so some one can steal them!) and proof of when you purchased the house to prove you are not the person they are after.
i've had letter after letter form british gas, but as yet only 1, very friendly person has been round to see if the person still lived there, in the year i've been living in this house
hth

jamtart6

thanks for the reply. we've had all sorts of letters from all different companies and baliffs so they must have been in real trouble what im most worried about is that we arent living there now, so I dont want to pop round one morning for the post and find the door ajar after a locksmith, bailiff and policeman have 'popped in'

spiro

If you can arrange for any post (power bills etc) for you to be sent to your current address. You might want to check if Royal Mail operate a 'return to sender' service for all post or 'forwarding' if you can obtain the address of the previous occupants. Otherwise if you can't do either simply seal the letter box and put a notice on the outside saying something like 'Previous occupant moved, return all post to sender'.

custardy

power companies just keep sending these letters out
i see it all the time
N powers favourite is to send out various versions of one address
eg in a stiar and its for 16 3f1
they send a letter to 16/1,16/3 and 16 3f1

Sirbendy

When we moved into our flat on Friday, there was a HEAP of opened mail for the last tenants...debt collections, final warnings, gas disconnect warnings, water bill court case warnings, BT letters saying "account passed to bailiffs" etc.

I'd hazard a guess the last tenants did a moonlight. EVERYONE was after them.

Straight on the phone to STW, BT, their debt collection lot (number was on the letter), energy company etc - "They don't live here, we took tenancy on the 13th, and there's all this opened mail. No, I have NO idea where they went. Sorry" etc.

All the companies were really good - "oh, no worries. Ignore the letters, we'll have the address removed from our databases. We'll track them down somehow."

I doublechecked with Gas/Electric (Southern), and the bloke said "we set you up with a new account, so it's all irrelevant to you, just bin it.".

We had it at the last place too...the only comeback we had was one bloke who came knocking looking for the last chap, so we showed him our tenancy agreement, explained we had no idea where he is now, but the landlord seemed to have a number for him.

"Cheeky git. He bought a car and hasn't kept up the payments. RIGHT. Thankyou Sir, sorry to have disturbed you".

Don't worry too much, after all - it's in no way YOUR debts..

jamtart6

thanks for the replies. we have had loads of letters, we've spoken to royal mail and all of the energy companies too - they must have owed thousands (even the poor old milkman ) I just get nervous when the real bailiffs letters turn up!!

Herbie21

To protect yourself you must WRITE a letter to advise the company that you are the new owner . This is very important.

jamtart6

ooh why does it need to be a written letter instead of a phonecall??

adouglasmhor

jamtart6 wrote: »

ooh why does it need to be a written letter instead of a phonecall??

Because it starts a paper trail, best to send it recorded delivery for an extra
70 pence odd you will have proof of delivery. If you phone they can forget what they are doing and deny any message was taken. Not because they are mallicious, just because they are incompetent.

Vestra

adouglasmhor wrote: »

Because it starts a paper trail, best to send it recorded delivery for an extra
70 pence odd you will have proof of delivery. If you phone they can forget what they are doing and deny any message was taken. Not because they are mallicious, just because they are incompetent.

I would say they are more likely to lose the letter even if it is recorded.